I’m often surprised when I realize that no one ever attempted to stop me from becoming a missionary.  No one was ever gutsy enough to say,

Actually Emily are you sure you can do this?  You like convenience.  You like glamour.  You like being offered ice cold water in the OB/GYN’s waiting room. You’d choose a swanky hotel over camping any day.  You liked to go clubbing back in the good ole days. Currently, you keep a black pair of 3 inch heels in your wardrobe just to remember what it feels like to be sophisticated.  Shh…

I could have respected that person.  Maybe I had even hoped for that person? Was everyone thinking it but no one dared say it? Did I fool everyone in to thinking this dusty, sweaty life is my ideal of a dream life?  Have I pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes?  Or did I fool myself?  Whoa, that feels way too uncomfortable to think about.  No.  I honestly believe my two worlds can mesh for the love of God.   I’m going to have to get creative.  And I better jolly well give it a good shot if I’m in this for the long haul.  Who cares if I like fashion, I’m just gonna enjoy someone else’s fashion for a while.  Who cares if I like hotels but live in a house with no hot water and frequent power cuts….d’ya know how amazing the sheets of a hotel bed will feel when I finally hit American soil?  The best things are worth waiting for.  And I may or may not daily think about the list I have titled “Airport Hamper.”  The list of edible goods my in-laws are going to bring to the airport when they pick us up next year for our first furlough.  (Guys I have given you two grand babies so far, the least you can do is bring me Wafflehouse homefries, covered, smothered and diced).

To lighten the mood I will share a funny story with you.  I’ll just wait here for a sec while you stick the kettle on and pour yourself a cuppa or grab an ice cold can of Coca Cola….

Here I go.

We have our fair share of stories and that’s only after 8+ months.  See, it’s inevitable when you have crazy babies like we do.  They get knocked down by motorbikes, pull motorbikes down on themselves (caught that one accidentally on camera while Drew was filming me learning to dance with some Cameroonian girls).  Crazy babies lose toenails and get malaria–twice.  But have I ever told you about the time when I was getting a crown fitted and the power went out?

It was a couple of weeks before the big move further north.  I felt some twinging in my left molar and wanted to get it checked before moving deeper in to African living.  I get a recommendation and find myself in a clean, and adequately equipped dentistry office.

So I’m sitting there, open as it were on the big fat chair.  My mouth as wide as I can make it, numb on both sides probably.  Feeling a little nervous, because who likes going to the dentist anyways, ha!  And all of a sudden, a big exhale, like someone couldn’t hold their breath for a second longer.  Shut down.  And silence. Eerie silence.  Shouting starts coming from the hallway in unintelligible to me French.  My dentist gets up off her stool, goes to the door and shouts back.  Seriously?  Minutes go by, I’m rustling the paper napkin in my hand in hopes that it can at least break the silence.  My eyes look up (still open mouthed) to the dental assistant sitting at the top of my head…erm awkward.  I attempt to give a little c’est la vie smirk but I’m in shock so my mouth is fixed in it’s state of total openness.  A few more minutes pass during which the dentist has left the room and there’s more shouting.  She comes back, gestures to the assistant to grab the torch from the draw and begins to work away on my teeth with a different, non- electrical instrument.  Give me strength.  The minutes were ticking by and the numbing juice was gonna start wearing off soon, but there we were: torch in mouth being picked away at in the dark.  Twenty minutes later the power came back on as abruptly as it went out.

Who would give up the chance to collect these awesome stories!